The Russia Stability Tracker

The June 2023 Wagner mutiny was the closest Russia had come to an armed struggle for power near the capital since the early 1990s. Key parts of the military and security apparatus seemed paralyzed during the mutiny. And yet, Russian political life has seemingly moved on as if nothing happened. This can partly be explained by Prigozhin’s subsequent murder, interpreted by most people as a realization of Putin’s previously stated assertion that he “shows no mercy” to traitors. Even more important in understanding the reaction to the Wagner mutiny is the recognition that Prigozhin had a unique status among the elite—although he was not in Putin’s inner circle, he had clear connections to Putin and controlled media and financial resources and, most importantly, his own quasi-private army, the Wagner Group. With Prigozhin’s death, the only figure among the elite who is remotely comparable is Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Kadyrov’s health thus bears watching. Despite the seeming paralysis in the power ministries during the mutiny, the heads of Russia’s military and security structures are all Putin loyalists, and most of them have been in these positions for many years. The memory of the perceived vulnerability of the regime won’t go away, but unless there’s some other major unexpected shock to the system, there is no reason to think this represents a source of instability for Putin at this time.

Put simply, the result of the Prigozhin affair in summer 2023 was the elimination of a potential rival to Putin. In the long term, this means greater uncertainty regarding the future of Russia and who will lead it, but in the short term, it means greater consolidation of control for Putin. Prigozhin’s mutiny in late July was both a huge surprise for much of the world and a huge embarrassment for Putin. For a moment, it seemed possible that Putin’s grip on power could unravel. Perhaps just as quickly, however, Prigozhin backed down, Putin reasserted control, and eventually Prigozhin was assassinated. Such episodes of extreme uncertainty—where suddenly the impossible seems possible—vary in form in authoritarian regimes, but they do occasionally transpire. In rare instances, regimes succumb to the challenge, as did Ben Ali’s in Tunisia in 2011. More often, however, they withstand it—as did Erdoğan of Turkey following the failed coup in 2016 and Maduro of Venezuela following the 2018 presidential crisis. And the result is the sidelining or silencing of key challengers to their rule. As such, though the egos of such leaders may be bruised, they typically emerge with greater political control, not less.

At the end of June, it appeared that the Putin system might be seriously challenged. Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin mounted a mutiny and appeared to have considerable support—including from General Surovikin—when he took over the Rostov base and began to march toward Moscow. Putin appeared briefly on television, looking angry and uncertain of himself. For 24 hours, the world wondered whether a civil war might break out. But Prigozhin turned back because he was apparently not sure what would happen when he and his troops arrived in Moscow. In the following weeks, Putin was able to reassert his leadership, Prigozhin was eventually killed, and Defense Minister Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Gerasimov remained in office. Without any alternative, Putin’s grip on power appears strong. He has used the war with Ukraine to strengthen his position and convince those Russians who remain in Russia that there is no alternative to victory and that Russia will win. The average Russian has not felt the economic pinch from sanctions, and Russia is still earning billions of dollars from hydrocarbon sales. Repression has increased, but Putin’s popularity remains high. As he prepares for his election campaign in 2024, he will be unchallenged and will undoubtedly win by a wide margin.

President Putin’s political position remains stable. The major political development since our June assesment was Yevgeny’s Prigozhin’s “coutiny”—more than a mutiny in that Prigozhin’s men killed fellow Russian soldiers in their so-called “March for Justice,” but less than a coup in that Prigozhin did not directly call for Putin’s removal and pulled up stakes short of Moscow. We do not know much about the political consequences of failed coups and mutinies. One extensive review of the academic literature finds few robust relationships but notes that coups breed coups, though mostly in military dictatorships. High country income and wealth discourage coups, while political instability and violence encourage them. These factors all suggest a coup in the classic sense is unlikely in the near term. Moreover, the ease with which Prigozhin was dispatched would be an added deterrent to a potential coup-plotter. At the same time, Prigozhin’s “coutiny” is a reminder that political threats in autocracies often emerge unpredictably, and political change often occurs in a nonlinear fashion in these settings. As assessed in the June update, events on the ground in Ukraine remain likely to provide the greatest relative threat to President Putin’s position, although personalist autocrats often stay in power after military defeats, so the risk of losing power via this channel remains low in absolute terms. While military setbacks on their own might not threaten Putin, they may be more dangerous when combined with other potential problems (e.g., economic hardship at home; visible social costs resulting from the sanctions, such as the grounding of passenger planes for lack of parts; or obvious failures of governance). One looming issue is the continuation of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. Signaling that military aid from the U.S. will cease or decline dramatically would likely embolden Putin, strengthen war supporters in Russia, and further reduce the threat of Putin losing power.

I don’t see significant change in underlying structural variables. In a more speculative vein, I have thought for some time that change is most likely to come about—if at all—through progressive degeneration of the Kremlin’s managerial and decision-making capacity as mini-crises and challenges proliferate, and as perceived weakness at the center causes lower-level agents to default to corruption and inaction. At some point, such erosion could trigger a serious crisis. Pressure is gradually rising. Although Russian defenses have held back the Ukrainian counteroffensive, some problems have grown more acute. As Ukraine strikes within Crimea, many ships from the Black Sea Fleet have been withdrawn from Sevastopol. There are signs of increasing unease at home about conscription—the number of Yandex searches for “when will the mobilized return” has increased significantly. Key decisions will be made over the next month about strategy in the 2024 presidential election. The Kremlin has reportedly ordered polls asking respondents whether Putin’s resignation would “improve, worsen, or not change the situation in the country” and whether someone else could “replace Putin as president.” Putin’s announcement of his candidacy for president in late 2011 prompted a wave of discontent, followed by mass demonstrations in 2011–2012. The Kremlin seems at least concerned about such a possibility now. None of this suggests imminent danger to the regime, but the risk of serious mistakes is rising.

After Prigozhin’s brief but spectacular “mutiny,” Putin appears to have retaken the reins of power and looks to be settling in for a prolonged national mobilization. Yet he is now presiding over an increasingly unpredictable regime, one that is slowly but inevitably approaching the end of its life and appears increasingly vulnerable to domestic and external pressures. Putin’s reliance on a small circle of loyalists has created a governance structure that is resistant to adaptation, and this calcification is especially dangerous given the institutional deficiencies and systemic corruption in which the regime operates. Though he still commands the support of the coercive apparatus and faces no immediate threats, regime uncertainty has increased, and Putin appears less indispensable than he did a year ago.

The key word here, I think, is “apparent.” We could see Prigozhin’s uprising coming and the fissures that generated it, and we could see the knots into which the Kremlin had to tie itself to get through the last several months of Russian politics. Depending on your point of view, you can arrive at the conclusion that the outcome of the Prigozhin affair indicates the Kremlin’s flexibility and thus its strength, or you could arrive at the conclusion that it indicates the Kremlin’s vulnerability and shrinking room for maneuver. The evidence for each of these opposing conclusions is, in my view at least, equally strong, and so we are left not really knowing whether the Kremlin is stronger or weaker as a result. The silver lining, however, is that the Russian elite are likely equally flummoxed and will continue to reevaluate their sense of Putin’s strength on a situational and a contextual basis, responding to emerging political challenges only hesitantly and with hedged bets, thus making it difficult for the Kremlin to rely on proactive loyalty. If I had to put my finger on one key challenge to the regime, that would be it.

Putin’s likely assassination of Prigozhin sent a clear reminder to other would-be challengers that the bar is high for displacing Putin. Even if Prigozhin did not intend to directly challenge Putin, the regime’s response demonstrates zero tolerance for public displays of disloyalty. Although it appears Prigozhin had some sympathy for his cause from the inside, it was not nearly enough to trigger a cascade of support away from Putin. Always wanting to remain on the winning side, the political and security sector elite will, for now, remain loyal to Putin. But their apparent lack of enthusiasm for Putin suggests they will continue to monitor the political winds to gauge any change in their direction. Now the question becomes whether Putin’s efforts to sustain the stability of the regime will prove effective or unintentionally precipitate new challenges. For example, the militarization of Russian society, including the allowance to regional governors to create their own private military companies and the granting to Rosgvardia (the National Guard) the ability to access heavy weapons, could raise the risk of a more violent and chaotic transition later. As the failed mutiny underscored, things look stable, until suddenly they are not.